


cut yourself on my edges

by kitnaks



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: LATER, M/M, Multi, now it's an actual plotline and everything i am so sorry, so come and join me in this slowburn hell, there will be smut, this started as a shameless writing exercise to put keith in lingerie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-07 09:24:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7709671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitnaks/pseuds/kitnaks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Remember," Hunk says, "the safeword is Sporks." </p><p>Or: The singular instance in which a political mission ends with Keith in a dress and Shiro in distress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> holy shit this is shameless writing so i could stick keith in lingerie  
> i swear i'll post decent writing... someday... but today is not that day  
> definitely not that day

 

“I cannot believe,” Lance says, “you got this to work. How did you make him say yes? You didn’t, did you? You’re lying, aren’t you!”

Shiro leans his head back, a sigh deep like a rumble in his throat. Three months ago, this might have given him a headache. Lance was an acquired taste – people who had only just met him would be quick to jump the gun on _loud, obnoxious, flirts with anything that has two semi-functional legs._ Shiro knows better now.

Lance is intelligent in a way that doesn’t follow the linear path he’d been raised to identify as the division between those that would go far and those that wouldn’t, intelligent in a way that many people tend to overlook. Lance is loud, but he gets louder when he’s scared for his team members, and quiet all together when he’s hurting somewhere people can’t see.

But sometimes – sometimes Lance is just flat out obnoxious. And he knows it.

Pidge comes into the den they’d eked out as the team meeting center, eyes brightened by the holographic screen in front of her, laptop tucked safely underneath an arm. Lance swivels to face her, pointing a finger.

“Shiro’s lying, isn’t he!” His statement catches her attention, and her stare is as dry as a desert. “There is no way he convinced Keith to go undercover for this.”

“That’s right, Lance,” Pidge intones, the arid acridity of her voice enough to cause entire famines, plagues, and the death of many a just ruler in the world, “our pinnacle of leadership is lying just to get a rise out of you. Look at him – he is the very image of betrayal.”

She sits down in her gear and pushes open her laptop. Lance huffs, pleased with her statement for all of two seconds before realizing his mistake in trying to trust Pidge to back him up.

Shiro just sighs again.

“I am curious though,” Pidge says, either to save Shiro from another assault from Lance or simply because she has another sort of under-his-skin game in mind that she’s much better at playing than the Blue Paladin, “how did you get him to agree?”

“Yeah, and why not just send Allura?” Lance interjects.

“Allura,” Shiro says with forced patience, “will be quite busy handling every other politician in the room with _dignity_ and _grace._ ”

The two words are pointed directly at the Green and Blue Paladin to remind them that while _they_ won’t be undercover, their leader is expecting a flawless performance of elegance and – social etiquette on an intergalactic level. Both of them share a glance because neither of them have ever been necessarily dignified or graceful.

Hell, Pidge broke into the Garrison undercover after all. Lance… Lance was Lance. Shiro wasn’t worried about Hunk, who entered just as he opened his mouth to speak again. The Yellow Paladin was a gentle giant, but Shiro knew that if any politician tried to step on him, he’d step back and make it look like nothing.

“That answers one question,” Pidge says shrewdly, squinting behind her glasses at Shiro. Without her helmet on, she prefers to wear them. _They remind me of Matt,_ she told Shiro once. _I want to keep remembering until I find him._  

Shiro pushes a hand through his hair and internally swears at the action. He shouldn’t be messing his hair up the hour before a grand-scale political event that could either help them flush out corrupt individuals within what could otherwise function as a basis for an organized rebellion to help Voltron in fighting the Galra Empire or ruin what little reputation they’d been able to build with the liberated planets they’d freed in the months after fighting the Galra poison Haggar had sliced into Shiro’s veins during their last (and poorly planned) assault on Zarkon’s command and finding each other again in the aftermath of the wormhole that had spat all of them out in different quadrants of the universe.

Realizing that he’d gone quiet and the other three Paladins had decided to stare at him while inching closer and closer, Shiro lets loose a soft little growl in the back of his throat that stops their tracks. The darker edge of his personality is a remnant of the poison. A permanent fixture, a duality he’s still struggling to balance out – between who he had been, and who he had become, and what they had made him into.

“I asked.” It is as simple as that. Or at least, he tries to make it out to be. “That’s all I did.”

“Woah, yeah, no, there is totally something more going on here than _you asked,_ ” Hunk says.

“Maybe he blackmailed him,” Pidge says.

“Maybe he knows some dirty secret about his past,” Lance adds.

“Maybe they’ve done this before,” Pidge replies and sits back on her haunches, returning to her laptop. “As long as we get in and out though, I guess it doesn’t matter. We should have a safeword though.”

“Sounds kinky,” Lance says and is immediately granted the deathly sharp edge of Pidge’s elbow. He screams and falls onto the ground, writhing in a melodramatic act of pain.

“I mean, if anyone gets into a bad situation, we might want a word to notify the others without giving ourselves away.”

Lance is staring up at Pidge from the floor. Spread out and gangly as he is, he still makes an impressively handsome figure when he’s not so unaware of himself that he’s busy making a fool of himself. Which is to say, 90% of his time spent in the presence of others.

Shiro snorts quietly to himself. Maybe that is Lance’s charm though. None of them would take the Blue Paladin any other way.

 “Alright,” he says instead, “What should it be?”

“Sporks,” Hunk supplies jokingly from his seat. It’s been a running gag ever since their first run-in with the quintessence facilities that they were now tracking and targeting.

The three of them bounce words off of one another while Shiro watches, feeling increasingly nervous with every tick that goes by, counting them down to the date. The Castle of Lions is landed only a fifteen-minute ride from the function – a grandiose glass structure that overlooks the entirety of the northern quarter of the city-planet of Reitva. They’d all seen it glowing in the distance, nothing but warm light and hundreds of stories of elegance that seemed too beautiful and delicate to survive beneath the control of the Galra Empire.

A door swishes open behind him, cutting off the words in everyone’s mouth. Keith strides in in that moment, and whatever calm that Shiro had been carefully cultivating inside of himself goes to pieces at the sight.

Keith is definitely not dressed yet. It’s no surprise – Allura had said that she was trying to find something perfect to fit him and would be down with it as soon as she could. In reality, the reason Keith had been selected was by process of elimination. Shiro was too noticeable and would never be able to fit his shoulders into the outfit necessary. Lance would flirt his way into an early grave. Pidge was out for plenty of reasons, the top one being that they would need her brain and wits to help in the event of a bad ending to the night. Hunk could probably charm anyone, but he was the muscle of the team tonight. He’d jokingly asked if he was the Voltron bouncer now, and it had stuck.

That, and if Shiro was being completely honest, Keith had the best hips out of all of them for the job.

“Keith!” Lance shrieks from behind him, and the Red Paladin looks up and glares, one hand tangled in his hair and the other brushed against the hem of his shirt. “Put on some _pants!”_

Keith lets his glare dissolve into a chilly snarl. “I can’t. It’s part of this mission not to. And stop _staring.”_

He steps into the gap between the two couches the four paladins are perched on and suddenly Shiro has a full view of his half-dressed undercover agent and a full idea of just how hard it is going to be to deal with the rest of the night on his own.

The shirt is a throwaway – loose gray cotton that has gone nearly see-through from overuse and poor laundering technique.

But Shiro isn’t looking at that. He is staring at Keith’s legs, just like Lance is.

The sheer black stockings reach his thighs, and the garter belt is a night-dark mesh of lace and gold that shows through his shirt. He is wearing heels, and gods only know how he is so capable of walking in them without stumbling. Maybe there is something in his past that Shiro doesn’t know. Or maybe Keith is just one hell of a balancing act.

His eyes trail up, trying not to get hooked on any one thing until he finds the Red Paladins face. His mouth is dry, his words should be those of a leaders, but all he can say is, “I think you fit the part pretty well.”

“There is nowhere to put a knife,” Keith responds, whiplash sharp, and his glare punctuates his displeasure with that particular circumstance. Not the fact that he is about to throw off his shirt and throw on a dress, or the fact that Coran had pulled a nunvil concoction through his hair earlier until it had gone long  and silky (impermanent, Coran promised, and by that, he probably meant they could just cut it off later), but the fact that he would be weaponless tonight.

Or, as weaponless as Keith could get when everything but his fists were taken from him.

“That’s your only problem?!” Lance chokes. He’s standing now, the heat running his cheeks a deep red.

Keith snaps his attention to him. “Why are you the one embarrassed by this?!”

“I’m not!”

“Your cheeks say something else.” Keith crosses his arms and lifts his chin, and Shiro nearly chokes when he bends his weight to one side and his hip cocks up, the thin strips of black that connect his stockings to the garter belt going taut against his skin. “Eyes up here.”

“My eyes are – “ Lance says, wrenching his face away from Keith’s hips to his face. “My eyes are exactly where you’ve led them, you piece of – “

Allura decides that this is the perfect time to appear.

“Keith!” She says, completely unfettered by her Red Paladins appearance. Gender was a fluid thing in Altean society, she’d described once, though Coran had added that he had never looked good in a dress and was sadder for it. They were, apparently, very comfortable things.

“We only have a few more ticks before it’s time. I found something that will have the General’s eyes all over you so that you can take the information we need. In and out, safe and sound. No Altean blood needed!” She gestures and Keith sends Lance one last triumphant look before stalking away with her into another room of the Castle, talking in politics and every thread of gossip that might be useful for their temperamental Red Paladin to charm his way past locked doors and into places that even Pidge can’t hack. The Blue Paladin is too flustered to have the capacity to make an “in and out” joke, and only gapes after them as they walk away.

“I’m – so – “ Lance huffs and stops and stares at the far wall.

“Gay?” Pidge deadpans.

“No, nonono.” Lance shakes his head vigorously with a glare in the Green Paladins direction. “I mean – hello, bi? – not saying I wouldn’t tap a hot ass in a garter belt but – not that one. Not that ass. Not Keith’s ass. No.”

 _Denial,_ Shiro thinks, his mouth still dry as a desert, _is not a river in Egypt._

It was one of the things Matt had told him on their trip to Kerberos when he’d found himself explaining Keith to the older Holt brother. After a few weeks of what Matt had later defined as unintentional pining, the scientist had looked him deeply in the eyes and said – very seriously – that when they returned from their year-long mission, Shiro needed to propose, and if he didn’t, Matt would do it for him.

He stands up to shake away the sudden heat pooling in his stomach and the flush along the back of his neck. He had enough self-control for this.  He could _do this._

“Come on, it’s nearly time,” he says and stands up stretching. “I’ll go get Keith and Allura. Meet us down at the entrance.”

He walks out of the room before there can be anymore protests, and doesn’t listen when Pidge begins a relentless assault against Lance.

 It takes a few trial and error doors before Shiro finds the right one.

“Allura? Keith? I’m coming in. It’s almost time – “ he says, stepping through the door, maneuvering it closed even as he breathes deeply through his mouth to calm his fraying nerves and the tightness in his gut, the swell of teetering self-control between his thighs.

Now is _not the time for this._

“Here,” Keith says. Shiro follows the sound of the Red Paladins voice around the corner of the room into one its secondary spaces and stops short.

Keith is standing in front of him, silhouetted by the low light of the room. His hair is longer now, and coiled in elegant disarray around his shoulders. It looks as though it had simply grown out overnight, and Allura had gone a little overboard with a curling iron. But it looks good.

Keith looks – good.

Shiro had spent enough time in his life watching the other cadet. He had once memorized the shape of Keith’s hips, the slender-sharp form of his back and elbows and thighs. Everywhere he wanted touch but knew that he couldn’t. Everything he’d wanted but knew existed out of reach.

Everything that looked good in the night-dark ribbons of what he would definitely have to contest as actually _being_ a dress. The material was slit from Keith’s hip to where it fell to the floor, showing the edge of the stockings, the heels, the slice of skin in between. It came up to wrap around his throat like a collar, and a glittering set of jewels laid against his throat, the mixed color of galaxies pinpricked with stars.

“This is ridiculous,” Keith said, his voice throaty and soft, “I look ridiculous. Stop staring.”

“I can’t,” Shiro says, and it isn’t a lie. It is everything but a lie. He takes a step forward and reaches out, his fingers just shy of Keith face in question. A question that he has asked, wordlessly, time and time again.

Keith blinks, his eyes flicking to Shiro. He leans his cheek into the other mans palm and lets out a low rumble of sound. And here it was, the place they’d been on the edge of for months. Between Paladins, comrades, friends, teammates – and. Something else. Something more.

“We’ll be watching you,” Shiro says to stall the thoughts in his head and Matt’s echoing voice laughing at him. “I know you don’t like this plan.”

“I would like it a lot more if this garter belt had the capacity for a knife.”

Shiro’s laugh is strained.

“I’ve seen you with your fists. I think you’ll be fine.”

Keith turns his head further so that his mouth is curved along Shiro’s palm. A spike of heat rolls up Shiro’s back like a gunshot, like a tremor, the first wave of an earthquake.

 _Don’t,_ he thinks. Because if Keith goes further, Shiro might damn them both to hell. _Don’t._

Keith speaks against his hand, but his eyes are turned to the Black Paladin. Watching, animal and lupine.

“I told you I would do this,” Keith says, his voice a low sound, guttural in the back of his throat, “I told you what my price was.”

“Are you cashing in now?” Shiro asks, his voice breathy and purposefully slow. He is tense all over, his body wired to every point of contact between them. Keith’s skin, what he would look like with the dress off. The shirt. Off. What he would look like beneath him, writhing, moaning, begging –

_No._

Shiro bites the inside of his lip until there is a ferrous taste crowding his throat. _We have a job to do tonight._

“Three questions you _have_ to answer,” Keith said and lifted his head. His eyes flared, animal once more. “Are you afraid of them?”

_Yes._

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Shiro breathes out, sharply. “Keith.”

“What am I to you, Takashi?” Keith asks, his voice burns from him. He steps closer, lupine and predatory. “What am I?”

They are not what they were before. Shiro knows that. They are not two cadets, only apart in age. They are not dreamers, telling stories to each other of what they’ll do together when Shiro is back from Kerberos and Keith is a graduate of the Garrison. They are not friends – that’s too shallow and easy a word, because there have been nights when they have fought on the training deck until there was blood and bruises and wet lips and hisses, both of them choking on words they couldn’t say out loud.

Shiro tilts his head down at Keith. His hands move slowly, slipping down to Keith’s hips. He can feel the lingerie there, the garter belt. His Galra hand could cleave through it within seconds.

“Takashi,” Keith says again, a thread of something molten hot in his tone. Edging on that familiar heat that always burns in Keith, easily manipulated towards anger. And in rare moments, something else. Something more.

Shiro breathes out and digs his fingers into the Red Paladins skin.

“Salvation,” he says. “You are my salvation.”

“Good,” Keith says, his lips scant inches from Shiro’s face. And then he pushes past him, and Shiro realizes that the dress cuts a severe v-shape down the Red Paladins back, giving way to nothing but toned skin and a beautiful, curving spine.

Keith turns to look at him from the doorway, silhouetted and beautiful. Lupine. Dangerous.

“Eyes up here,” he says, dryly. “We have a job to do.”

Shiro hisses out a breath.

“But after that,” Keith continues, and it’s a dare a dare a dare, one that Shiro knows he’ll give into, knows he’s never been able to say no to, “You’ll answer my other two questions. And maybe I’ll pay you back in kind.”

“Aren’t you already doing that?” Shiro forces himself to ask, to keep up the banter. To do – anything, to stop the heat in the dip of his stomach, the curve of his back. To stop himself from being the liability of this mission.

They have a rebellion to form and his sex life is not a part of that equation for success.

But Keith smiles, and it is edged and hungry and prowling. It sets off fireworks in Shiro that make him _want._

“I think we both know what I’m doing,” Keith says, eyes dipping to Shiro’s waist and back again, and yes, he is completely at ease with his body and his attire, weaponless or not. He turns and leaves the room, fully expectant on Shiro following him.

And Shiro – Shiro believes that this night just became a lot more difficult than it was supposed to be.

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Everyone who is sent into this lions den is warned of who to watch out for,” the Imir says with an edge of challenge, “You might be more than a pretty face, but surely you’re smart enough to know that we are what you might call dangerous creatures.”
> 
> This is bait, Keith thinks. But his heart races at the concept of a challenge. It is a carrot dangling in front of his face, a hook, line, and sinker thrown deep into the molten core that makes him what he is.
> 
> Keith’s eyes narrow, wild-bright and lupine.
> 
> “What makes you think I’m not dangerous too?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this did not go where I thought it would at all holy hell  
> i am sorry i'm self-indulgent trash oh my god. this is completely unbetaed so I apologize in advance for any typos or wonky sentences q w q aaaaa

 

They cannot think of a single better safe word than Sporks.

Shiro thinks, in the darker corners of his own mind, that that is a surefire sign that something is definitely destined to go wrong tonight.

Keith leaves them before they enter the glowing spire of glass and shadow and light. Part of playing undercover means that for tonight, none of them know who he is. And he doesn’t know or care about a single one of them.

Lance scoffs when he slides away, high heels snapping off of black glass and marble. His eyes don’t leave Keith’s back though, and Shiro wonders if he’s as worried about letting the Red Paladin go alone as the rest of them are.

“He’s got the catty part down alright,” is all he says though, crossing his arms, and Shiro swats him lightly on the back. “What? Look at him!” He narrows his eyes at the Black Paladin, scrutinizing him. “Are you _sure_ there isn’t something you’re not telling us about your dark and dirty past?”

“I’ll fill you in on my history of grand theft auto and embezzlement at a different time, Lance,” Shiro says, and distracts himself from the fact that Keith is on his own – truly on his own now – with the look on the younger paladins face.

Allura gathers them around her with two sharp claps of her hands, her expression vibrant and determined. There is steel there, glittering and dangerous, and Shiro reminds himself that she would be the last one standing when the rest of the paladins got knocked down. How she was not a paladin herself he sometimes doesn’t know. Allura, Shiro thinks, could breathe life into Voltron herself if pressured into it.

She’s being forced to play diplomat tonight, and while she can cripple entire governments with her will alone, the Voltron crew has also come to learn that she much prefers a fight to a table full of squabbling leaders any day.

“Listen up, Paladins,” she says, using her _I am Not Fucking Around And Neither Should You_ voice, “Remember that this is an important mission and we are not allowed to fail. We cannot fail. Without an alliance of planets, even Voltron will not be able to single-handedly defeat the might of Zarkon and his grip on the known universe.”

She pauses, opens her mouth again. “I’ve run you through as many etiquette lessons as possible, so please, no matter what you do tonight, do not insult any of our possible allies. I don’t care if that means you have to drink _churka_ or initiate an extremely complex honor ritual with one of the Sylvani in attendance. You will put your best foot forward as the Paladins of Voltron.” She sighs out, her left hand trembling as she represses the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. “As will I.”  

“Allura don’t worry,” Lance drawls, his voice vibrating just a pitch too high, wobbling on the note that Shiro has come to understand as _nervousness,_ “I am a _pinnacle_ of charm.”

“Oh man, that’s the biggest lie you ever told,” Pidge retorts.

“Yeah, apart from that time you said you were always straight,” Hunk adds.

They both grin at each other as Lance’s face burns. Shiro wonders if this is the time to put on his Leadership Voice, and a look from Allura announces that it is.

“Alright Allura, we’re with you,” Shiro says, sliding effortlessly to the front of the Voltron Crew. “Remember, we all have comlinks in. If there’s any trouble – well, you know the safe word.”

“Yeah, sporks, but if I start screaming, I hope you guys know that probably means the same thing,” Hunk says, lifting his hands to his face in a nervous gesture as Allura leads them beneath the winding glass structures that hang over the main entrance of the venue and into the thick crowds inside, full of aliens of every height and color and temperament possible to be found in the universe, all of their eyes turned towards them.

It should be beautiful. It is beautiful, Shiro thinks. But it doesn’t look the way it should in this light. It looks less like an invitation to a diplomatic meeting and more like the hooked, hungry teeth of the beasts those Altean fairytales speak of –

The ones about the monsters that came from the darkest edges of the universe, swimming deep in the shadows between stars.

 

 

* * * 

 

 

Keith decides very quickly that this mission is going to go one of two ways: flawlessly, or so fucking bad that the planet beneath their feet falls apart.

The mark isn’t Altean, or human, or Galra even.

The mark Allura had set for him is a species of human-like aliens called Imir, and they are impossible to overlook. Their skin looks like an oil spill in the glittering light of the glass palace, nothing but blacks and shining, polished blues. Their hair is the color of the abyss of space, pulled sharply away from sharp jaws and pointed ears. All of them are built as though someone had pumped them full of steroids, nothing but chorded muscle and sharpened teeth, crimson eyes with hungry white pupils that dilate and contract like cat eyes.

When the Galra had come to their home planet, the story went that they had not fought or begged but bartered, until they had slid their way into Zarkon’s pocket as trade allies. Partners in business alone. A relationship that could be easily shattered by one wrong move. A relationship that had somehow lasted thousands of years.

That they’d sent representatives to this function – that they had even agreed to the possibility of a planetary alliance in the first place and no news had spread through the galaxy of Galra retaliation against their home planet – was enough to make the Voltron crew suspicious.

Not to mention that they were nearly fully to blame for the last five thousand years of business coiled around inter-galactic human trafficking and the ability to supply nearly any buyer with the right amount of cash with their particular poison.

Allura had described them as serpents, thieves, and conmen masquerading as diplomats. They were only untouched for their use to the Galra Empire – and their delivery of services to any planet left with enough freedom and underground market for whatever their hearts desired.

Sex and drugs and organized crime are like second nature to them.

But survival is a second nature to Keith.

A hand slides over the small of his back and Keith bites down on every screaming alarm inside of his body that tells him to recoil and throw a very fast punch. He is going to be the team player in this, because in this situation, he is the only one who can pull this off. And that meant swallowing the bitter pill of patience and knee-jerk reaction in him for violence. He was the only one that could do this. Whatever limbs he wanted to break tonight would have to wait.

Keith sucks in a sharp breath, feels that molten core inside of him go hot and heavy like a furnace being stoked. So many times people see it as anger, but just as many times they’re wrong. Keith isn’t just a boy with bloody fists and no sense of self-control.

 _Paladin,_ he thinks to steel his nerves, the fire coiling inside of him. _And this is part of the job._

“So,” The Imir drawls, his mouth sliding into a grin around fanged, shark-like teeth, “How has a beauty such as yourself been dragged into such a boring place like this?”

His words are nothing but dripping oil and curling hunger, and Keith feels a second vibration of disgust roil beneath his skin, gooseflesh rippling wherever those fangs caress.

“I’m more than just a pretty face,” he responds, his tongue whiplash sharp and cruel, the molten heat of his tone making the white pupils of the Imir’s eyes dilate. “How has a busy man like you ended up in a place like this? I’ve been across a galaxy or two and diplomacy has never been on the agenda for your kind as far as I’ve seen.”

At least, Keith thinks, being in the role of seducer leaves him the wiggle room for being as rude as he pleases as well. Allura had described the Imir to him in two short sentences – _they like a challenge. They’re always in for a chase, so take them on a ride._ Followed by, in typical Allura fashion, _I don’t care if you break their toes to do it, we need the information they have on the Galra. And the information they have on their own._

The Imir hisses out a laugh that sounds more like an animal snarl.

“The galaxy is changing,” he says, his voice dipping softly, “We’re always looking for partners in trade. Friends with benefits.”

“And you think Voltron can give you that? You’re choosing a rebellion over an Empire?” Keith asks, eyes flicking to the alien.

His oil spill fingers feel like ice.

“We are not choosing anything.” There is a simplicity in the way his partner speaks. An easy serpentine hiss and purr of words that could charm anyone into a dangerous situation. “Business is our priority. Investments are what we deal in. If the Voltron Paladins prefer to call it an alliance, why not let them believe it?”

“And what do you hope to gain from this?” Keith gestures to the room around them, glittering with the light of one hundred glass sculptures, a thousand more aliens within it, all of their eyes turned towards the four humans at the center, laughing and tripping through negotiations the way they always did.

There is a low, soft hum of sound from the Imir. His head tilts, animal, and he says, “Let me show you something. That is, if you dare.”

“Dare?”

“Everyone who is sent into this lions den is warned of who to watch out for,” the Imir says with an edge of challenge, “You might be more than a pretty face, but surely you’re smart enough to know that we are what you might call dangerous creatures.”

This is bait, Keith thinks. But his heart races at the concept of a challenge. It is a carrot dangling in front of his face, a hook, line, and sinker thrown deep into the molten core that makes him what he is.

Keith’s eyes narrow, wild-bright and lupine.

“What makes you think I’m not dangerous too?”

 

 * * *

 

The Imir leads him into the hungry maw of the palace made of glass. Somewhere deep beneath the well-lit halls where the diplomatic gathering continues to rage on. Keith follows, lupine, predatory, continuing to swallow the adrenaline rushing through his veins. He should say something, anything, to alert the rest of the group. His comlink is inactive, but a quick swipe with his fingers over his long hair lets it buzz gently to life hidden in the hollow of his ear.

After all, he’s nearly positive this isn’t somewhere made for the public eye. Coran might be tracking them all from the Castle of Lions, but Coran won’t be able to catch up to him half as fast if something goes wrong.

The empty room they slide into lights beneath a few touches from the Imir to a glass panel hooked into the wall, and Keith wonders briefly just how wired in these people are. Reitva is one of the last surviving metropolis’s beneath Galra rule. It crawls with just as much resistance as it does crime. The perfect festering ground for creatures like the Imir. Credits go far, after all, in a world under an Emperor’s thumb.

How many pockets did they fill here on this glowing rock?

As the room around them darkens, the alien beside him pulls up a holographic feed from a silver bracer on his arm. With a few gentle, clicking taps of his claw, he turns the air around them into one thousand pinpricks of blue light, and the known universe spirals out around them. A second tap and lines of purple light flare to life within it, glimmering with information at every planet they weave between. A rainbow thread overlaps it. Voltron’s own path, it looks like. The Imir are watching them as well. There’s a third tap – there’s a soft hum that clicks through the room and in Keith’s ear. Like a soft fizz an pop in the hollow of his ear.

Keith’s mouth goes dry. He hadn’t been entirely sure what Allura had wanted him to steal from the Imir, but _this_ was certainly something worth taking.

“Galra?” He asks, forcing his tone still and unimpressed as he points at one of the silky purple strings connecting Reitva to another large planet in its system.

“All of their trade routes,” The Imir responds. “All of their facilities and shipment factories. Though it looks like Voltron is quickly becoming a competitor. A voice for the lesser planets it saves.” His smile is sharp. “Our business has a monopoly on space facilities for transfer and trade of high-end shipments. The Galra have been buying out our stock and services for thousands of years. An expansion to other parties wouldn’t be such a far stretch of the imagination if one were only willing.”

“And just what kind of services are those?”

“Whatever is necessary to continue our partnership. For the Galra, we process their orders, every single one of them, from recent demand on Quintessence storage to special requests to maintain good terms with them.”

Something crawls up Keith’s back. Anticipation, biting. Nerves, pulling taut. Every instinct in him is softening into a dark, burning hiss. Not for the first time, Keith counts the exits. Determines just how hard it would be to beat one Imir into the ground and steal that bracer. It wouldn’t count as full data – but it would count as _something._

“Why are you showing me this?”

The Imir inhales sharply. The white of his pupils slide across the canvas of red to Keith, dilated, hungry. This is a hunt, he realizes too late, and he’s fallen into a trap. Is it too stupid yet to yell _sporks?_

“Oh, as a distraction of course,” The Imir laughs. He turns fully to Keith, and the Red Paladin doesn’t realize he is backing up until the taller creature prowls forward, every step shadowing his movement until his back hits the door.

“For what?” He breathes, at a loss for a sharper set of words.

There is a soft purr of sound, a terrible hissing noise, and Keith sees something flash in the aliens hand, too narrow to be a dagger, too easily hidden to be a gun.

“We have a special request from Emperor Zarkon himself.” The Imir drawls, eyes flicking over Keith’s form, “We’d no idea we would get it in such a prime condition though. Tell me, Paladin, was the dress simply because the princess told you we liked our toys in black?”

Keith’s breathing picks up, and he tries to force the panic out of system as he throws himself out the door and back into the empty hollow of the hallway. Laughter trails after him, but Keith is already running, as fast as he can, even in high heels and a goddamn skin-tight dress.

_Left, right, up – up – up –_

Something shifts into the darkness as Keith bullets past and he has a moment, two, none at all, to think _shit,_ before his body is crashing into the floor and something heavy throws itself over his back, hooking him in place.

Claws snare in his skin, pulling the wrist of his right hand tight against his back, and Keith outright snarls at the action, using the other to try and drag himself free – it’s fruitless, stupid – why did he let Allura talk him into this mess, why did he agree to do it for Shiro and three stupid secrets he could pull from that man like pulling teeth? _Selfish little boy,_ a cruel voice whispers in his ear. _This is what you get._

“Gentle with the goods,” The same voice from the room says, and Keith looks up at the alien with oil-spill skin, his white pupils fully blown and a smile carved into his too-sharp face. “And watch for that temper. This one has a bite.”

“Fuck _you,”_ Keith spits, releasing all of the anger and fear and adrenaline inside of his body, coiled tight beneath the mask he’d been wearing all night long, “ _Fuck you.”_

“Is that what you say in your language?” A chuckle, derisive, “How cute.”

The alien steps closer, twirling the silver tool from before between his fingers, and Keith realizes with a sick drop of his stomach that it’s a syringe.

“To give credit to the princess, she knew our tastes down to those pretty little stockings. It’s a shame she didn’t realize she was playing straight into our hand, but I suppose we cannot fault her for everything she did not know.”

He tilts his head down, and Keith would do anything for his bayard, a free hand, anything. He bucks his hips savagely, trying to unsettle the heavy weight on top of him and – _goddamn_ , where the hell is everyone? Where the hell are they? Haven’t they been listening long enough to know Keith is probably about to get a dose full of something downright unpleasant if they don’t hurry up?

“What the hell do you want?” Keith hisses instead, nothing but burning words and a will for violence. He wants to curl away from the footsteps coming closer, the heavy weight of legs pinning him down at the small of his back, the hand that has come to dig crescent imprints into the bare skin of his thigh.

“Oh, nothing of course. This is business, Paladin.” The Imir kneels, his expression cold and cruel, laughter creased into the corner of his mouth at the human on his belly in front of him. “Zarkon requested the Red Paladin, the one that fights like a Galra Soldier, if I remember correctly. We were worried at first, when you did not appear with the others. But then you came right into our arms. How kind.” He tilts the syringe between his fingers, flashing and bright and dangerous against the black and glistening blue of his skin. Keith bucks again and is rewarded with a sharp flare of pain against the back of his head, stars exploding in the black hollow behind his eyelids as he shouts – curses – screams –

Claws cut into the soft flesh of his chin and drag his gaze upwards. He has enough autonomy left, at least, to spit a wet smear of blood at the Imir’s face, but the alien only laughs, a terrible, wicked sound.

“Temper, temper,” he drawls gently, and then, “Now stay still. This is going to sting.”

 

 

*  *  * 

 

 

_“This is going to sting – “_

There is a soft huff of sound, and that is it, followed by a sick sense of satisfaction. Easy mark, easy prey, and the boss has everything wrapped up in a bow. The bracer glows against oil spill skin, tracing a map of the glass palace Reitva hosts its vulnerable little dalliance in. Small black markers move against it, a single red one crowded against them. The rest of the colored ones glow in a separate section entirely, maneuvering about, unaware of the switch in feeds, and it is a pity, really – they’d been told to watch out for a hacker. What a boring little game.

The secondary feed in one ear crackles to life.

“Hey man, anyone got eyes on Keith? I’ve got nothing over here.”

“Uh, why would I want eyes on that limp noodle? Have you seen this Sylvani maidens of beauty and wo – “

“ _Lance.”_

“I don’t see him over here.”

“Neither do I.”

“Hey Keith, buddy, now’s the time to use the safeword – “

A hum chords through the air. The bracer glows again, switched to an audio feed and a program solely for manipulating sound.

“Can’t talk,” Keith’s voice says into the comlink, over a microphone as eyes watch the red mark move further and further away, “But I’m fine. Just don’t mess up your part, Lance.”

“Me?” The voice that is the Blue Paladin pipes up, sounding indignant. “I _own_ this whole diplomat thing.”

“You sure you’re alright?” The voice of the Black Paladin asks, worried. “I know you’ve got your fists, but we’re here if you need us, intel or no intel.”

 The Imir smiles and stands up as a message appears beneath the audio feed.

 _It’s time,_ is all it reads.

“Positive,” he says into the comlink. “See you on the other side.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys, please let me know if you want a continuation of this!  
> i have an entire plot jangling around in my head, but i'd love feedback on whether or not anyones interested in #bullshit plots and #slowburn  
> also please come yell at me on tumblr @kitnaks if you have any prompts for voltron you want me to write! >B)

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys if you haven't suffered enough come yell at me on tumblr @kitnaks with prompts to fill i need to write more  
> comments/kudos always appreciated!!


End file.
